Book of Common Prayer
148 Hallelujah!
Praise the Lord from the heavens.
Praise him in the heights above.
2 Praise him, all his angels.
Praise him, his entire heavenly army.
3 Praise him, sun and moon.
Praise him, all shining stars.
4 Praise him, you highest heaven
and the water above the sky.
5 Let them praise the name of the Lord
because they were created by his command.
6 He set them in their places forever and ever.
He made it a law that no one can break.
7 Praise the Lord from the earth.
Praise him, large sea creatures and all the ocean depths,
8 lightning and hail,
snow and fog,
strong winds that obey his commands,
9 mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedar trees,
10 wild animals and all domestic animals,
crawling animals and birds,
11 kings of the earth and all its people,
officials and all judges on the earth,
12 young men and women,
old and young together.
13 Let them praise the name of the Lord
because his name is high above all others.
His glory is above heaven and earth.
14 He has given his people a strong leader,[a]
someone praiseworthy for his faithful ones,
for the people of Israel, the people who are close to him.
Hallelujah!
149 Hallelujah!
Sing a new song to the Lord.
Sing his praise in the assembly of godly people.
2 Let Israel find joy in their creator.
Let the people of Zion rejoice over their king.
3 Let them praise his name with dancing.
Let them make music to him with tambourines and lyres,
4 because the Lord takes pleasure in his people.
He crowns those who are oppressed with victory.
5 Let godly people triumph in glory.
Let them sing for joy on their beds.
6 Let the high praises of God be in their throats
and two-edged swords in their hands
7 to take vengeance on the nations,
to punish the people of the world,
8 to put their kings in chains
and their leaders in iron shackles,
9 to carry out the judgment that is written against them.
This is an honor that belongs to all his godly ones.
Hallelujah!
150 Hallelujah!
Praise God in his holy place.
Praise him in his mighty heavens.
2 Praise him for his mighty acts.
Praise him for his immense greatness.
3 Praise him with sounds from horns.
Praise him with harps and lyres.
4 Praise him with tambourines and dancing.
Praise him with stringed instruments and flutes.
5 Praise him with loud cymbals.
Praise him with crashing cymbals.
6 Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!
Hallelujah!
114 When Israel left Egypt,
when Jacob’s family left people who spoke a foreign language,
2 Judah became his holy place and Israel became his kingdom.
3 The Red Sea looked at this and ran away.
The Jordan River turned back.
4 The mountains jumped like rams.
The hills jumped like lambs.
5 Red Sea, why did you run away?
Jordan River, what made you turn back?
6 Mountains, what made you jump like rams?
Hills, what made you jump like lambs?
7 Earth, tremble in the presence of the Lord,
in the presence of the God of Jacob.
8 He turns a rock into a pool filled with water
and turns flint into a spring flowing with water.
115 Don’t give glory to us, O Lord.
Don’t give glory to us.
Instead, give glory to your name
because of your mercy and faithfulness.
2 Why should other nations say, “Where is their God?”
3 Our God is in heaven.
He does whatever he wants.
4 Their idols are made of silver and gold.
They were made by human hands.[a]
5 They have mouths, but they cannot speak.
They have eyes, but they cannot see.
6 They have ears, but they cannot hear.
They have noses, but they cannot smell.
7 They have hands, but they cannot feel.
They have feet, but they cannot walk.
They cannot ⌞even⌟ make a sound with their throats.
8 Those who make idols end up like them.
So does everyone who trusts them.
9 Israel, trust the Lord.
He is your helper and your shield.
10 Descendants of Aaron, trust the Lord.
He is your helper and your shield.
11 If you fear the Lord, trust the Lord.
He is your helper and your shield.
12 The Lord, who is ⌞always⌟ thinking about us, will bless us.
He will bless the descendants of Israel.
He will bless the descendants of Aaron.
13 He will bless those who fear the Lord,
from the least important to the most important.
14 May the Lord continue to bless you and your children.
15 You will be blessed by the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.
16 The highest heaven belongs to the Lord,
but he has given the earth to the descendants of Adam.
17 Those who are dead do not praise the Lord,
nor do those who go into the silence ⌞of the grave⌟.
18 But we will thank the Lord now and forever.
Hallelujah!
The Flood
7 The Lord said to Noah, “Go into the ship with your whole family because I have seen that you alone are righteous among the people of today. 2 Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal (a male and a female of each) and one pair of every kind of unclean [a] animal (a male and a female). 3 Also, take seven pairs of every kind of bird (a male and a female of each) to preserve animal life all over the earth after the flood. 4 In seven days I will send rain to the earth for 40 days and 40 nights. I will wipe off the face of the earth every living creature that I have made.”
5 So Noah did everything that the Lord commanded him.
6 Noah was 600 years old when the flood came to the earth. 7 Noah, his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives went into the ship to escape the floodwaters. 8 Clean and unclean animals, birds, and creatures that crawl on the ground 9 came to Noah to go into the ship in pairs (a male and female of each) as God had commanded Noah.
10 Seven days later the flood came on the earth.
17 The flood continued for 40 days on the earth. The water increased and lifted the ship so that it rose high above the ground. 18 As the water rose and became very deep, the ship floated on top of the water. 19 The water rose very high above the earth. It covered all the high mountains everywhere under the sky. 20 It rose 23 feet above the mountaintops.
21 Every creature that crawls on the earth died, including birds, domestic and wild animals, and everything that swarms over the earth, along with every human. 22 Everything on dry land (every living, breathing creature) died. 23 Every living creature on the face of the earth was wiped out. Humans, domestic animals, crawling creatures, and birds were wiped off the earth. Only Noah and those with him in the ship were left.
Christ’s Gifts to the Church
4 I, a prisoner in the Lord, encourage you to live the kind of life which proves that God has called you. 2 Be humble and gentle in every way. Be patient with each other and lovingly accept each other. 3 Through the peace that ties you together, do your best to maintain the unity that the Spirit gives. 4 There is one body and one Spirit. In the same way you were called to share one hope. 5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over everything, through everything, and in everything.
7 God’s favor [a] has been given to each of us. It was measured out to us by Christ who gave it. 8 That’s why the Scriptures say:
“When he went to the highest place,
he took captive those who had captured us
and gave gifts to people.”
9 Now what does it mean that he went up except that he also had gone down to the lowest parts of the earth? 10 The one who had gone down also went up above all the heavens so that he fills everything.
11 He also gave apostles, prophets, missionaries, as well as pastors and teachers as gifts ⌞to his church⌟. 12 Their purpose is to prepare God’s people to serve and to build up the body of Christ. 13 This is to continue until all of us are united in our faith and in our knowledge about God’s Son, until we become mature, until we measure up to Christ, who is the standard. 14 Then we will no longer be little children, tossed and carried about by all kinds of teachings that change like the wind. We will no longer be influenced by people who use cunning and clever strategies to lead us astray. 15 Instead, as we lovingly speak the truth, we will grow up completely in our relationship to Christ, who is the head. 16 He makes the whole body fit together and unites it through the support of every joint. As each and every part does its job, he makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Many People Are Cured(A)
7 Jesus left with his disciples for the Sea of Galilee. A large crowd from Galilee, Judea, 8 Jerusalem, Idumea, and from across the Jordan River, and from around Tyre and Sidon followed him. They came to him because they had heard about everything he was doing. 9 Jesus told his disciples to have a boat ready so that the crowd would not crush him. 10 He had cured so many that everyone with a disease rushed up to him in order to touch him. 11 Whenever people with evil spirits saw him, they would fall down in front of him and shout, “You are the Son of God!” 12 He gave them orders not to tell people who he was.
Jesus Appoints Twelve Apostles(B)
13 Jesus went up a mountain, called those whom he wanted, and they came to him. 14 He appointed twelve whom he called apostles.[a] They were to accompany him and to be sent out by him to spread ⌞the Good News⌟. 15 They also had the authority to force demons out of people.
16 He appointed these twelve: Simon (whom Jesus named Peter), 17 James and his brother John (Zebedee’s sons whom Jesus named Boanerges, which means “Thunderbolts”), 18 Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James (son of Alphaeus), Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot, 19 and Judas Iscariot (who later betrayed Jesus).
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